Large towns are the graves of the human species; they would perish
in a few generations, if not constantly recruited from the country.
The confined, putrid air, which most of their inhabitants breathe,
their want of natural exercise, but above all their dissipation,
shorten their lives, and ruin their constitutions.

Children particularly, require a pure air; every circumstance points
out the country as the proper place for their education; the purity
of the air, the variety of rustic sports, the plainness of diet, the
simplicity and innocence of manners, all concur to recommend it. It
is a melancholy fact, that above half the children born in London,
die before they are two years old.

To shew how indispensable fresh air is to children, I shall mention
one example which sets the fact in the clearest light. In the
lying-in hospital at Dublin, 2944 infants, out of 7650, died in the
year 1782, within the first fortnight after their birth, which is
nearly every third child; they almost all died in convulsions; many
of them foamed at the mouth, their thumbs were drawn into the palms
of their hands, their jaws were locked, the face was swelled and
looked blue, as though they were choaked. This last circumstance led
the physicians to conclude that the rooms in the hospital were too
close, and hence, that the infants had not a sufficient quantity of
good air to breathe; they therefore set about ventilating them
better, which was done very completely. The consequence has been,
that not one child dies now where three used to die.

Fewer children indeed die convulsed now, than formerly; this is
because the rich learn, either from books, or conversation with
physicians, how necessary fresh air is to life and health; hence